1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a system and method that includes a presence server capable of notifying a watcher (e.g., team leader) about a location of a person (e.g., team member) using a rich presence element in accordance with security and privacy rules specified by the person.
2. Description of Related Art
As shown in FIG. 1, an existing presence server 100 is shown which is coupled to a user agent 102 sends rich presence information 104 to a watcher 106 (e.g., team leader 106) so as to notify the watcher 106 for example about the status of communication devices like a phone and/or a computer used by a person 108 (e.g., team member 108). In this way, the watcher 106 can tell if the person 108 is currently working on their computer or talking on their phone before trying to contact that person 108. However, the presence server 100 does not send information about the current location of the person 108 to the watcher 106. Instead, a location server 110 is needed to send location information 112 about the person 108 to the watcher 106. In a typical network, the location server 110 obtains location information 112 from a RFID reader 114 (only one shown) that is located in a particular area of an office building/work environment/hospital (for example) which receives a unique identifier 116 from an RFID tag 118 carried by the person 108. The RFID reader 114 can use IEEE802.11 (or similar standard) to establish wireless communications with the RFID tag 118 and then read the unique identifier 116 which enables the determination of the current position 112 of the person 108 within the office building/work environment/hospital (for example). The RFID reader 114 sends this information via a local area network (LAN) 120 for example to the location server 110 which organizes and stores the location information 112 in database 122 so it can be reported to the watcher 102.
It would be desirable if there was a way of eliminating the need to use the location server 110 and instead enable the presence server 100 to receive and organize the location information 112 in a database 123 so it can be sent as a rich presence element along with the other presence elements 104 to the watcher 106. This was not possible in the past because the location server 110 has a location manager 124 with a location rule holder 126 that contains requirements/rules for security and privacy which indicates whether or not the location information 112 should be sent to the watcher 106 in the first place that are much more stringent than the requirements/rules stored in a general presence rule holder 128 of a preference manager 130 used by the presence server 100 to determine whether or not to send rich presence elements 104 to the watcher 106. This problem is solved by the present invention.